Evie Deal's life is turned upside down when her father's new band takes America by storm. She goes from being a shy girl living in poverty to riding with one of the craziest bands of the 80s, all while trying to manage a rocky relationship with the...
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April 18, 1981
"Evie!" The man once known as Bob Allen Deal exclaimed when he noticed his sixteen year old daughter standing in the interior doorway of their garage.
"Uhm... this is the band I was telling you about. This is Nikki, Tommy, and Vince. Guys, uh, this is my daughter, Evie." The three men all said their awkward greetings to the surprised young girl, who they had no idea existed two minutes ago. Evie managed to give back a pained smile but didn't say anything. She just stood there for a moment longer before turning around and walking back into the house.
"I'll be in there in a few minutes," she heard her father yell as she closed the door.
Mick Mars silently cursed himself. He thought the band would be done practicing by the time his daughter got home from school, but he lost track of time. This wasn't how he pictured the two most important forces in his life meeting, but, oh well. Nothing he could do about it now.
"What the fuck, Mick," Mötley Crüe's bassist was amused. "Can we expect a wife and a toddler to open that garage door in a few minutes?"
The other two men laughed.
"No," Mick said. "It's just me and her." The twinge of sadness on Mick's face made Nikki immediately feel guilty for teasing him. He knew what it felt like to have a broken family.
"How old is she?" Tommy Lee said with a grin on his face.
"Not old enough," the guitarist shot back.
Vince spoke up for the first time: "She looks old enough to make you about, eh, 45." Laughter filled the Californian garage.
"Shut the fuck up you fuckin kid." Mick was silent for a second, then his expression became gentler. "She was born when I was a junior in high school. She turns 17 at the end of the month. She's my only child."
"What happened to the baby mama?" Sweet Tommy never knows when to shut his mouth.
"Don't you fuckin worry about it. Now are we gonna play or not?" Mick was not just avoiding the question because he didn't want to talk about it, he also genuinely couldn't tell the men what the mother of his child was doing at the moment. Last he had seen her, she had crippling alcoholism and was telling Mick she should have aborted their daughter when she had the chance. Two days later, all of her stuff was out of their studio apartment and Mick and his three year old were moving into his parents' house. He never looked back and his wife gave up trying to contact him within a few weeks.
"What were we playing before?" Nikki's voice interrupted Mick's thoughts. "'Stick To Your Guns?' Let's start from the top."
Soon, the garage erupted into that new style of rock'n'roll that would soon define the 80s.
---
Inside, Evie Deal was standing at the dining room of her home, trying to process what just happened. Of course she knew her father had joined a new band. That wasn't new; she couldn't remember a time when her dad was not in a band. She wasn't even sure why she was so surprised to see the guys playing. She could hear the heavy bass and drums on her walk home from school from two blocks away! What else did she expect to find when she opened that door? But no amount of critical thinking took away from the shock of seeing three long haired, makeup-clad men playing hard rock in her home.
